Smallpox News and Research

Smallpox is a highly contagious disease caused by the variola virus, a member of the Orthopox virus family. It is one of the most devastating diseases known to humanity, with a mortality rate as high as 30%. In 1967, the World Health Organization embarked upon an intensified vaccination campaign to eliminate smallpox, which culminated in the successful eradication of the disease globally by 1980.

By the mid-1980s, there were only two known repositories of variola virus: the Institute of Virus Preparations in Russia, and the US CDC. The events in the US in September and October 2001 highlighted the risk that the variola virus might be used as an agent of bioterrorism. Governments around the world are taking precautionary measures to be ready to deal with a potential smallpox outbreak.

The Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands, the Instituto de Medicina Molecular Lisboa in Portugal, and PATH in Seattle, Washington announced today that they will collaborate to test a new approach to malaria vaccine development in humans for the first time.

An experimental Ebola vaccine was highly protective against the deadly virus in a major trial in Guinea, according to a new study that included researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

An experimental Ebola vaccine was highly protective against the deadly virus in a major trial in Guinea, according to results published today in The Lancet. The vaccine is the first to prevent infection from one of the most lethal known pathogens, and the findings add weight to early trial results published last year.

The Region of the Americas is the first in the world to have eliminated measles, a viral disease that can cause severe health problems, including pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and even death. This achievement culminates a 22-year effort involving mass vaccination against measles, mumps and rubella throughout the Americas.

Saint Louis University's Center for Vaccine Development is studying an investigational vaccine for yellow fever, a potentially deadly disease that is spread by the same mosquito that transmits Zika virus.

As scientists scramble to get a Zika virus vaccine into human trials by the end of the summer, a team of researchers is working on the first-ever vaccine to prevent another insect-borne disease - Leishmaniasis - from gaining a similar foothold in the Americas.

Oxford University scientists have started a clinical trial to test a new vaccine against prostate cancer and are looking for volunteers to take part. The first four participants have already received this experimental vaccine at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, and the second trial site has just been opened at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield.

An experimental vaccine combined with an innovative way of vaccinating people has resulted in an estimated 100 percent efficacy of the vaccine against the Ebola virus in West Africa -- and the approach could establish a new way of responding to outbreaks of emerging pathogens, including the Zika virus.

Chronic viral hepatitis has a reputation for being a silent killer. The infection often goes undetected until the symptoms of advanced liver cancer appear. By that point, a patient has a five-year survival rate, according to the American Cancer Society.

A phage is a virus that infects a bacterium. People often get very confused about what the difference is between a virus and a bacterium. A virus, like a bacterium, is also a microorganism, but unlike bacteria, it needs to have a host to be able to replicate and propagate.

Shortly after the successful global Smallpox Eradication Programme (SEP) in the 80's, world leaders and public health officials announced a plan to eradicate poliomyelitis (polio) off the face of the Earth; the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization (WHO) together championed the cause.

The Research Council of Norway's Programme for Global Health and Vaccination Research (GLOBVAC) is co-funding testing of a new vaccine against Ebola that is drawing widespread international attention. The research programme has allocated NOK 20 million towards this work.

A vaccine against the Ebola virus, tested in West Africa for the first time in a field trial, has proved to be effective. People who had come into close contact with someone recently infected, and who are therefore at particularly high risk, were vaccinated.

Tests of the experimental Ebola vaccine VSV-ZEBOV in over 7500 participants in Guinea suggest that the vaccine provides high protection against the disease as early as ten days after vaccination, in adults who have potentially been exposed to the virus by coming in close contact with a recently infected person.

It is important to keep in mind that nontuberculous mycobacteria are environmental, and so unlike mycobacterial tuberculosis, generally this is not a person to person transmitted disease. The organisms are found universally in water and soil and so most people are exposed on a daily basis.

Aging is the continuing process of such stress exposures, and with advancing age (normal aging), we must carry lots of senescent cells within our bodies. Senescent cells also often provide some ‘bad influences’ to surrounding healthy cells; such as chronic inflammation and tumorigenesis

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